Friday, December 12, 2008

Fireworks... Not the good kind!

(from Matthew, the ROCK OF THE FAMILY)

We have a major ice storm on Thursday night/Friday morning. There were tree branches
falling all night and at ~2:30am one landed on our power line tearing the wire from the house.
There were alot of sparks and fire on the exterior and we called 911 and rushed to get the kids to the neighbors house. After dropping off the kids, I went back to check the house, the fire outside
was out, so I went in to check the house over. There was smoke in the house on the main floor.
Upstairs was fine, so I ventured into the basement. At first all was OK, then the power kicked
back on fireworks started in the basement. A couple older junction boxes were spitting sparks and fire. I have a fire extinguisher for our oil burner, so I gave the sparking boxes a few spurts. The flames would go out, but as soon as I stopped, it would all start back up. So once the fire extinguisher ran out, I had to leave. The fire department showed up a few minutes later and was able to get the external wire off the pole (stopping the electricity) and put the fire out. Upon inspecting the basement with the fire leutenant, we noticed the water main was leaking - aparently the ground wire arced and cut the water main pipe. The fire department called the city water dept and they shut the water off at the street. The fire dept opened all the windows to let the smoke out and we watched from the neighbors house.

Right now (Friday night) we are at a local hotel with many people who lost power. We have no electricity/water or heat. Over 250,000 home are without power in MA and NH. A neighbor down the street is an electrician and he is going to help us get the power back together so we can get hooked up to the grid again.

Keep us in your prayers this weekend that the house remains safe and that the weather cooperates and the electric company can get the electricity back up for the people here - and that we can get our house back together. The damage is not bad mainly a few charred beams and smoke, it's just the loss of utilities that prevent us from going home. The insurance company is working well with us to make sure we're taken care of... etc.

We'll update you as we get more things back together....

Matt Catherine Alexis and Jessica

3 comments:

Leslie, Arlin and Katie Kauffman said...

Hope you have power and are back in your house soon! Thank goodness the damage wasn't any worse than it was. Scary! We had lightning hit our house a couple years ago, and that's the most helpless feeling to watch the fire department working on your house, wondering what the extent of the damage is going to be.

Crystal M. said...

Wow that is scarey, I am glad you are all ok and you woke up in time to see everything that happened and able to get the kids out of the house.
I will keep you all in my thoughts and prayers.
Hugs,
Crystal and Eva (3 year old CHARGEr)

Unknown said...

OH my goodness! How awful! We are thinking of you...hope the damage isn't too extensive.